Jeeves & His Master
by Fluxit Aqua et Sanguine
Summary: A normal morning, preparing Mister Wooster for his day, in the eyes of a paragon of wisdom lost for the first time. A story of madness and unrequited love inspired in part by William Faulkner's "A Rose for Emily". Doctor's report to follow.
1. The Patient

**Disclaimer:** Jeeves nor Wooster belongs to me. -Sob- Wodehouse took them with him to his grave, I fear, and, no matter how much I try, I shall never be him. On an existentialist sidenote, I couldn't imagine well what it is to be dead, anyway.

I apologise if this is more TV-show canon than book, but I have seen more of the former, although I do appreciate the books very much. I just think that Fry and Laurie do a spiffing job as those two. XP I'm sorry for any consistency issues, and for the rather weird timeframe. Bingo's married much earlier than is true, I'm sure, and I might've gotten his wife's name wrong. Tough, that. But since I expect little traffic on this fic, I am not, currently, taking the time to fix it.

Forgive the tense. I've never attempted writing in this weird, quasi-stream-of-consciousness sort of thing before. It's awkward, I know.

So. This is a tale of insanity with a twinge of slash and a whole lot of confusion. I hope that you enjoy.

* * *

Eleven-thirty- it is time to stop with the silver polishing and meet Mister Wooster for the day, as it is every day that he does not desire to extend his impression of Endymion so far that one would think him a professional. I think it better when he sleeps longer, as it is good for a young man so very busy as himself, and, indeed, it means that I don't have to suffer his wonderful presence for as long as I do normally.

After pulling on my jacket, I come into the bedroom with his tea prepared as he likes it, -a touch of cream and five sugars, -and to take away the untouched brandy snifter that sits on his bedside table. I fear that my master has not been himself, lately, in the way of his drinking.

"You've not had your nightly fortification again, I see, sir." He smiles at me blankly, as he smiles at me every morning, with eyes hollow and thoughtless to see me. In that regard, nothing has changed. "I will take the liberty of guessing that it lies in the clubs' becoming too wild for you to require any on returning. Am I correct in this assumption, sir?"

A knowing silence passes between us, and his smile remains on his face, though, he has shifted his head sleepily forward to his chest, without having yet touched his breakfast.

"Very good, sir." I can feel my voice airing deeply in my chest, speaking just as he doesn't care for, with a bit of a "tone" to relay to the young master my position on his staying out for such late evenings, when he could instead be resting in the comforts of home. My master would normally, I imagine, have taken exception, but, as one can guess, he is presently too exhausted. I bow out with that, taking the abandoned snifter and returning to my work for the next half-hour, until I imagine he has finished eating. Like the brandy, however, he has not consumed anything, - another dangerous habit he has taken very recently, - and I can't stop a formal _"tut"_ escaping from my lips. Such things are not at all good for him… he should know this.

"Really, sir, I _must_ protest. Refraining from the suitable daily nourishment in this way is only going to bring harm to your person," I suggest with a frown and a shake of the head. I receive no acknowledgement at all, this time, and, sighingly, I move to return my tray and its still-filled plates to the sink to be put away in the ice-box. Done with that task, it is time to run a bath for Mister Wooster, which I do with the same amount of aloof efficiency as ever, though there is inevitably that strange twinge of feeling, at the thought of doing something of such a personal nature for my master, as running baths and getting him dressed in the mornings. Despite my training, and prior experience in being a gentleman's valet, I have never shaken such romanticized thoughts.

On returning, I find that Mister Wooster is still in bed, his head lolled forward quite as if he has managed to fall asleep again. I assume rightly that he has, on closer inspection, and pull my arms under his to bring him out of bed, a rather unfortunate ritual that has come about recently, as he has been so desperate to remain in the warmth of his bed that he completely refuses to stand and undress by himself. Still, I take the task with the normal level of care, and have to resort to carrying his stubbornly prostrate form from the bed to the bath.

As I continue my duties about the washroom while he begins to bathe, one can see the effects that my master's neglect are having upon his person, and I have to bite my lip against comment on this fact. Not only has he grown intolerably slight, his lithe bone structure visible down from his face to his chest, but a fine film of hair has grown present on the surface of the bathwater soon after he has entered. A piece of scalp covered in pale curls and caked with dried blood follows soon after with a slight splash of the water, but my master does not make any move to comment on this state- in fact, afterwards, he slips deeper into the bath, apparently falling into sleep once forced into something of a supine position once more. Sighing, I pull his head back above the surface as the fear of drowning does not seem to have made him desire to bring it back into the air himself, or, indeed, make him even wake from the pall of slumber which has pulled itself so fiercely over his lax mind.

"You'll pardon me for saying so, sir, but I do not like your staying out so late as you do, if it causes you to be as tired as this when you wake the next morning. You might have at least taken my restorative if you could not keep alert enough for your bath, sir," I chide him gently, and am met with a gratifying abashed silence. I can tell when my master learns his lessons from me, even when he insists upon being so inexorable as he is at the moment. He shall be forgiven for this, of course, if not for the larger matter that pulls at my mind when I care for Mister Wooster in our lovely microcosm of domesticity.

Despite his regret, he will not remove himself from the bath, and, once again, I am forced to pull him into my arms, at the risk of wetting my clothes, and bringing stains of blood onto my shirts and jacket when his head drops forward. When he is out, I work on drying him sufficiently to bring him into his clothes, a duty one who loves is forced to cherish, though it really means nothing to the person receiving the gesture.

Once I have come to placing his shirt on, - having had to lean him against the wall of his bedroom to prevent him dropping off again, - I have to crouch somewhat to do up the buttons, and a sickening _"crack"_ meets my ears, Mister Wooster's head dropping to his shoulder at a singularly pained looking angle. When the dressing is finished, I have him sat on the bed with a contemplative look, and a word,

"I shall have the doctor called about your neck immediately, sir," I promise to placate the room of the buzzing air of worry- though, as I sweep from his presence, I know that I will do no such thing. There is no need to- _I_ can care for _my_ Mister Wooster entirely. He needs no-one else upon this earth, and is lost without me. Almost as though I truly were the valet I am meant to be, calling someone to aid my Mister Wooster, the doorbell begins to ring insistently some short time after giving my empty promise to my master, and I move to open the door for a stricken, pale-faced Mister Little.

"I am sorry, sir- Mister Wooster is still sleeping, owing to a particularly late night last evening," I present him smoothly, quite true in my words, and, thus, somewhat surprised as Mister Little will not have it, his distress visibly increasing, and I am forced to press my hand against the opposite side of the threshold to prevent him coming forcibly inside, considering him with a calmed stare to counter his nearly gasping perturbation.

"Jeeves... please." His voice is lowered, my brows furrow together intuitively as the young newlywed leans forward to better address me. "It's done, Jeeves. You can't do anything anymore-"

"Excuse me. I am needed by Mister Wooster, sir. Good afternoon, Mister Little." I close the door and lock it firmly behind, able to hear Mister Little crying my name beyond it still, at an ever-increasing pitch and volume. I _can_ still do everything, unlike he says, of course. It is only that Mister Little does not trust me as my master does, as no man would, if he had not lived with me for any protracted period of time.

On returning to his bedroom, I have to continue to prod my master into a moving life, which still fails, so exhausted as he is, and take him out to the piano to pour him a wakening glass of brandy and soda- light on the latter, of course. He seems horribly dour, and, still, will not play for me, as I had expected his always exuberant nature would begin immediately when sat before his favored instrument. Discouraged further by his refusal of the snifter, I move to sit beside him with a smile, and start in playing his favorite tune for encouragement, _Forty-Seven Ginger Headed Sailors,_ in the hopes that this will make him be reanimated and start his voice upon the air with me as I play. The lack of words to the sprightly song he calls his own is horribly saddening, but I cannot sing to encourage in the way that I can play. Instead, I have to merely speak through my accompaniment,

"Come now, sir, this is your favorite song!" I can only say such a thing under the assumption that we are friends, as I really believe us to be called such, after all of our trials. Certainly, one could wish for more in a petulantly vocal manner, but the friendship we have that allows Mister Wooster to refrain from speaking for an entire morning without my being insulted or taken aback is quite enough of strength for me to content myself with, to be able to tolerate daily life in a state of unreturned rapture.

I've now surmised that my master will not sing for me- he has refused to all week, though I've encouraged him several times. I put him on the sofa as he is silent when I ask him to stand and walk with me there, and proceed to perform the overly-subservient action of placing a cigarette between his oddly stiff lips for him and lighting it deftly. As this point, when the ashes begin to simply smolder and fall onto his striped blue dress trousers, I have to take the thing back to stifle in the ash-tray before going off to my normal duties again, polishing shoes, mending clothes and the like. I had not realized before the difficulty in removing the putrid tones of vomit staining from clothing until this moment, much to my chagrin.

In only minutes of that, the doorbell is again rung like there is a madman at the door- or else a fire in the apartment complex, and the door reveals to me another soul who looks to be either despairing or gravely ill, dressed in austere fabric and tightly holding a black satchel in one hand.

"Excuse me, my good man… I am Doctor Benjamin Carlyle," the silver-haired gentleman greets me with a shaking, false smile, lifting his hat a centimeter above his head to me. "Mister Richard Little-"

"Forgive me, Doctor Carlyle, but Mister Little is mistaken about the state of my master, Mister Bertram Wooster. He is under the impression that Mister Wooster is ill, but I have assured him already that my employer is perfectly well- merely suffering the corporal consequences of a late evening and an excessive quantity of food and libations."

"My good man, Mister Little insists that Mister Wooster has not been seen by anyone besides yourself for more than a week," the man gives in shaking response to my sound remark, to which I cannot help but knit my brow again. "He says that there was an incident that he was present for... that Mister Wooster may need help..."

"I can assure you that that is not true, sir, and I apologize that Mister Little employed the use of his powers of usurpation to bring you to this address unnecessarily. Good afternoon." Like Mister Little before him, futile hands pulse a veritable heartbeat against the door, and ordering to be allowed inside issues loudly from behind it. No-one understands, and no-one shall- _I can_ take care of my master entirely. _No-one else..._ none of those ill-educated house doctors, nor _"friends"_ who simply come to take advantage of my master's beautiful kindness... I am the _only_ one in his life to offer truly helpful advice and not make do with his generosity when I desire something from him, by guilt or other entirely immoral methods such as that. I am the only one who can keep his life in order, as it is meant to be...

He is dozing on the sofa as I come back into the sitting room, leaving me unable to resist a real smile to his deep, closed eyes, his bloodless face, and that crown of pale hair that begins to shift and come off in my hand as I take the liberty of running my fingers briefly into his childish curls, an action beyond friendship only possible in his sleep, and only attempted within the past two days, or so. I adore his ability to tolerate, if indeed he can tell my feelings. But, by the same, if he knows, it would also indicate a certain level of willing ignorance, that he has not made any vocal expression on the subject. There is no point agonizing, though. I am alone, the man to a great master, the subject to an exalted monarch. If his eyes choose to grow scales rather than seeing the truth… so be it. Mister Wooster supplies me with ample funds for performing tasks I would run to accomplish merely out of care for him, and, as such-

The front door is being pounded on again. This time with less of an insisting hand, and more of one that would sooner break through the lock than leave without being allowed inside.

_"Mister Reginald Jeeves! This is Scotland Yard! I order you to unlock this door immediately, or we will have to do so ourselves by force!"_

I shrink at this. Could my mild actions towards Mister Wooster have been found out so quickly? One likes to think that one is discreet enough… it may have been the master himself, when he was awake, and I was out of the room cleaning or preparing a meal for him, off telling his friends all about my passing gestures of overtly strong affection. His silence should have been more marked, I chide myself dourly as I move to open the door, expecting the perfectly foul fate that awaits me there owing to my small allowance for sin. This time there are three people standing there: The policeman, the doctor, and Mister Little, each with a face more set than the last, gazing up at me as though I would just as soon allow them inside as clench my hands about their necks. After a moment's pause to judge me, the policeman begins, clearly shaken by my appearance, a combination, I imagine, of my height, and the fact that my shirt is still lightly stained with the pink reminder of blood that had come from Mister Wooster's head while I dressed him on my once-white shirt.

"Mister Reginald Jeeves, I presume..." His gaze is locked on the stains, still, and his voice retarded immensely from when he had been yelling at the door, turned into the vocal equivalent of mausoleum stone. "You are in the service of a Mister Bertram Wilberforce Wooster here, is that correct?"

"Yes, sir. I am afraid that he is resting, however, and-"

"I've just been informed of some… _business_ occurrence here, Mister Jeeves, and will be needing to look around the apartment for some time." Though I know I am perfectly innocent of anything they could possibly learn merely by looking around our building, something in the back of my mind, an extremely faded memory, - merely a notion, now, - tells me that I should not allow them inside. If they are not coming to arrest me by a rumor at the Drones Club about my actions... what can possibly have brought all these men to our doorstep? Frightened, I keep in the doorway, sharply catching the gaze of each man, - all at least six inches shorter than myself, - and stand over them, resolutely planted in the threshold of our apartment.

"What is this 'business' that you have been told of, officer?" I inquire with perfect curiosity, crossing my arms across my chest and raising my eyebrows at them all. "I do not recall anything of significance occurring for this past week with Mister Wooster. It has been particularly slow; in fact, he has been so tired he cannot remove himself from his bed in the mornings. The evenings make him exceedingly weary." The men exchange glances that puzzle me, as they seem to be sharing a disturbing thought, by the way that their brows come tightly together and their mouths hang boorishly open.

"Well, Mister Jeeves, that matter is... of a certain interest. If you allow us inside, we will inform you of the situation." The voice changes again, I hear, nearly a placating whisper- the sort one would imagine a doctor uses on entering a new mental patient to their psychiatric ward. Still, as it seems that there is no longer any threat of violence, I nod to the three with a word that I must first be sure that Mister Wooster is resting well, which the constable allows, in the same peculiar tone.

Supposing that he would dislike being interrupted by such proceedings, I carry Mister Wooster into his bedroom and pull the covers over him before I return, glad to think that he is still able to have some rest in the midst of this decidedly off situation, that, to me, still has no semblance of a logical explanation- except, perhaps, that Mister Little has the audacity to blackmail my master into performing some sort of task for him now that he is married, a concept that I would certainly not put past him, nor any one of Mister Wooster's Drones.

The three men seem to have come into a sort of protective huddle as I return to them, and allow them in with an easy smile. Despite my gesture to do so, none sit down, but continue to gaze at me as they are allowed in- the doctor even indicates for me to sit, which I do only after my refusal earns me a sincerely terrified glance from the man who requested it of me- much like my proud suggestion that I will stand as they do is a sign of some impending act of violence.

"Gentlemen... I am anxious to hear the nature of your visit, if you would be so good as to regale me with all due speed. I have things yet to be done for Mister Wooster this afternoon." Every word I give seems to indicate to them even further why they should stand firm in that mass of average-sized, black-suited men, holding their hats in their hands and nearly shaking as they bring their thoughts into enough of a cohesion to articulate.

"Mister Little, if you would please," the officer gives quietly, raising a hand in back of him to me; Mister Little looks like he is being condemned to walk to the edge of a pit of hellfire rather than addressing a man who has helped him so often in the past with his pre _and_ post-marital affairs. His grey eyes dart continually from the floor up to me as he begins,

"Jeeves... something's happened to Bertie, and I know you know it. You may be having some kind of... delusion... or whatever the doctors call it...-" the doctor behind him nods gravely, - "I think it's because you think it's your fault that it happened. You didn't _mean_ to do anything, Jeeves, I _know_ it, and how much you cared about Bertie, from these years you've been serving him..."

"I do not understand you, Mister Little. 'My _fault',_ you say? I cannot imagine any experience in which I've brought physical harm to Mister Wooster, whether by intended means or otherwise." It is the truth, and the doctor behind the hopeless-looking young man brings a slightly shaking hand up to his shoulder and whispers into his ear; if my powers of aural perception are as keen as they ever were, I believe it was something to do with "telling the whole story". But this only succeeds to confuse me more, for there _is_ no _'story'_. Only normal days and normal nights, of seeing my master when he has come home from his club and when he desires meals in. Of bathing and dressing and making mad attempts to imagine the fathomless all while keeping a guise of legality and propriety necessary for my profession... It is the same as it ever was. Perhaps some things had changed, in the way of this last... nothing Mister Little may have seen...

The sandy-haired youth swallows, clutches his hat closer to his chest, and starts again, "It was last week, Jeeves. A week passed from today, actually..." He laughs perversely at this, obviously lost for speech, as any man searching for his words will do when placed in a situation entirely above his ability to rationalize. "Bertie and I had some ridiculous scheme planned, you know, the sort he takes up to show that... you don't control his life. We were going to start our 'work' by going into the mirror business. Old-fashioned mirrors, the kind they made in the middle of last century… something Bertie said he used to do all the time with his great uncle... Rosie demands that I do something lucrative with my life, and Bertie's aunts were on him all the time... We couldn't afford the treatment they do in Germany and expect to make any kind of profit, you know, using silver coating... So we had to make purchase of glass, tin sheets, and, of course… mercury." He pauses at this again, and, with some horror, I can feel a very small, though very pointed feeling that I have heard this story before... as if I believed in the Hindu scripture of reincarnation, and had been told the same within the last before my current state of being. Yet there is "not a jot" to lessen my firm belief that I am correct in my denial of knowledge, to paraphrase the Bard. To indicate this, I return the gaze of the young man with a mild interest, but nothing more- his pale eyes had been begging me to have a sudden recollection that would not enter my mind, as one could have seen on a passing glance. The doctor and the policeman have both subsequently begun writing on small pads of paper extracted from their coats, beginning to meet me with a certain _interessamento academia_ overcoming whatever fears present that had made them shake in the doorway, energy now used to send their pencils racing down their minute pages. They stopped at nearly the same moment and glanced impatiently back up at the young man, "Go on, Mister Little, we need more information out of him."

"We... started to make our set-up in the kitchen, but couldn't find anything to pour the mercury as evenly and slowly as we were supposed to… so we dumped out your creamer and filled that, figuring we'd tell you about it as soon as you got back from the store. We got distracted, though. I said we should have a snifter before teatime, and we went out after putting all the glass and tin away... we jolly well forgot about the mercury, though." I can hear his voice turning from steel to venom as he goes on, every mention of the peculiar metallic element deepening his tone and making it waver ever closer to a varnish of tears. "We shouldn't have put it there... we just... _forgot_ it, after we put it in the creamer... so... after some chatting, and some brandy, we came back to the flat for tea." He is openly gasping for breaths now, and the doctor gently coerces Mister Little into a stuffed chair opposite me, the one my master always takes his evening glass in. "I just asked for sugar, and you had Bertie's ready when we walked in the door... we... chatted about our great scheme... about the success of my marriage... and... then..." The young man lost his tongue once more, and regained it with an extraordinarily high level of volatility. "Bertie just started... having a fit. Twitching and fallen over the arm of the chair, drooling... and vomiting... You came in some moments after with some medicine, I think, Jeeves, and took him up like he was a baby squirming in your arms, but he'd... Oh Lord... he'd already hit his head against the chair leg so many times that he was bleeding from this ghastly crack in the skull, scalp torn away... I couldn't believe it. He was... my _best friend..._ was dead as soon as you put him on the bed. I remember, he was... still shaking, all tensed... but your hand on his heart was what told us..." The doctor had come to Mister Little in his chair when he finished and is speaking to him quietly through the sudden onslaught of tears; the policeman is now staring over at me, towering his gaze from afar as I'd done to him in the doorway.

I stare at them all with incomprehension obvious in my features, as it is what I feel, still, hearing a part of my life recited to me much as if it were created in a terrible dream. Still, I do not believe. With a near-growl, the officer wrenches me up by the arm and takes me into the bedroom where Mister Wooster is, and points furiously at the sleeping form of my master, yelling hotly into my face,

"By _God,_ boy, he's _dead!"_

"Please… don't yell when Mister Wooster is trying to sleep..." My voice falters under the strain of the verbal abuse I am being presently assaulted with. I feel nothing but a sickening trepidation… on the edge of that same precipice Mister Little faced before reciting his tale to me. The officer makes another roar of ire and takes me by the shoulders, shaking me with a force I can't hope to compete with even taking into account my superior height. I am lost, and it shows in my inability to fight against an unreasonable power willing me into mental submission by physical means.

"Mister Wooster is _deceased,_ Mister Jeeves," the physician insists on his appearance in the doorway, forcing himself between me and the policeman- who snarled furiously as he was pulled back and met me with a gaze to melt iron across the sprawling master bedroom. The doctor is at Mister Wooster's side in a moment, and I move intuitively to prevent my master being woken; I am not hasty enough to him, however, and Mister Wooster's arm is already being lifted limply upward from his coverlet and dropped down again without any move to resist or make motion by itself. A cold sweat appears on my temples, and I have begun speaking without recognizing my own voice, high and wavering,

"He is not, sir… you are deluded yourself. He is resting, simply… _resting_…. I have cared for him for days in this state… how can someone of so learned a profession as yourself ever manage to confuse the states of sleep and death, Mister Carlyle? You haven't the qualification to call yourself a 'doctor', in this case…."

I have hidden my face from the men, quite unable to look at them while my mind is reeling with such wild strength that I daresay even an Irish professor on the dances of his homeland could not have moved with greater speed. All I can do is stand and bear the incredulous eyes of two men who have done nothing but to harm my master, and hear the distracting noise of Mister Little weeping with great strength into his hands.

No-one sees but myself… I _am,_ as Mister Wooster has said repeatedly, a 'paragon of wisdom', ready to dispense information at any time, and make diagnoses where appropriate. I have no knowledge of these people… where they have come from, what their reliability is reported from the place of their employ… I can only trust in myself. I have always been good to Mister Wooster, and, thus, I shall do him good by defending his life against those who would take him for the sake of mistaking one state of unconsciousness for a different one entirely.

The doctor's firm hand has appeared on my shoulder, and he is gazing up at me with a level of pity that I cannot stand, yet my emotionally weakened state does not allow me to do much more than shift some inches away from him. A dry smile has thus appeared on his lips, and he speaks,

"Come, now, Mister Jeeves… come out with us for some time. You have been too long indoors with your master, I believe, if what Mister Little has said is true." I raise my head to protest the truth of Mister Little's words, knowing the turmoil he has succeeded in causing thus far by his 'sayings'- yet I am interrupted before any semblance of language can issue from my mouth. "We will have everything explained to you soon enough."

* * *

Eleven-thirty- it is time to stop with the silver polishing and meet Mister Wooster for the day, as it is every day that he does not follow under Morpheus' spell for so protracted a period that one would think him enamored of the deity. As I have been tutored so well by life, I truly find gladness when he allows himself to sleep in so- insomnia is a bane in life for which there is little cure, as I know well, and innocent is the mind that can always find rest in the night. Surely, it can be said that I delight in the imagination that Mister Wooster is still the pure, frankly joyous young man I have known him to be since that first day of employment.

Once made perfectly presentable, I am in with his tea just as he likes it, - a measure of cream and five lumps of sugar, - and to take away the empty brandy snifter left from the previous night's drinking, a habit he has taken to again in the past days, which makes me wonderfully relieved. He is back to being himself.

"I am glad to see that you've begun taking your brandy again, sir, if you do not mind me saying so." My voice has raised much from the cold sobriety of days before, when I was so concerned for his position that I was on the edge of speaking my mind through my biting tone. He has taken an exception to the change, I can see, and his pale eyes have come up to meet mine with a much broader smile than is usual, and I am _deeply_ gratified.

"One cannot complain, Jeeves. It was awfully silly of me to have started going off the stuff in the first place. Didn't help a thing, and, anyway, I'm even not sure what it was _supposed_ to help," he relays to me with a cheered laugh, and I allow my own version of a smile to come across my lips before retreating back into the kitchen for his tray, arranged so beautifully as ever with a hard-boiled egg, toast, bacon and a little blooming rosebud peeking out from the bud vase- the one thing that displays my constant, subtle efforts towards becoming more than a 'man'. With a bow, I leave to return to my work for the next half-hour, until I suppose that the tray is empty. Like the brandy, everything has been consumed with what one guesses can be thought of as the speed and vigor of a young man ready to begin a larking day about the town. When I take the tray, he remarks, with another smile I hope to call 'fond': "Jeeves…. You always know what's best for me, you know? Can't thank you enough sometimes, my good man."

"Really, sir, I _must _protest…." My embarrassment has gotten the better of me- although used to flattery on matters of the mind by Mister Wooster, the terms he uses always seem to denote _more_ to my mind, that he is thanking me for something greater than simply telling him what to do in the case of a surely ill-fated engagement, or quoting the appropriate poet's epigram for a moment in which he requires an eloquent phrase to entail the scope of his feelings. "I am only ensuring that you take your proper daily nourishment again, as you had stopped for some time."

"It's bally well more than _that,_ Jeeves," he corrects me swiftly, sitting up erect against his pillows and considering me as I leave to deposit his tray, and when I return to start his bathwater. Over the small roar of the tap, Mister Wooster begins another swaying address, "I mean… everything you do for me…. Helping me out, and cooking, and dressing me of course, but… also… being so… _good_, and thoughtful…. Those roses always make me smile to the day, to feel that Mister Bertram Wooster is a loved man."

It is moments such as this that make one believe that one is imagining life… or else re-living in a better place after death. Yet the reality of it all is striking, and I can only bring my voice forth after I have come into his presence again,

"Sir?"

I had imagined that he would be unnerved by my doubt when this epiphany occurred, but, no- he is as imperturbable as one could hope for, his face forthright and his eyes set unwavering forward to me. However much of a cliché that it sounds, I will make it known that it _is _a wonder I did not die just then- it is supposed to be the curse of the gods, to fell any mortal who dares look into their faces.

"Jeeves… you make me feel _wonderfully_ loved. And one can easily guess why that is." He stared through me with great perception, and even came to bring one of his unmarred hands, characteristic of his bourgeois lineage, to the side of my face. "Don't you love me, Jeeves? As a paragon of knowledge, you must already know that_ I_ love _you…."_ I could so easily weep on hearing such words, and come forward to embrace him about the chest- with a surprising strength, I am drawn into the vast feather bed beside Mister Wooster. He is unbearably divine, in every sense- there _is_ no epigram in existence for this moment of smiling into his face, as I never have before, tears obscuring my vision until my eyes are forced to close, and he kisses me. A dream… it is a beautiful dream brought into reality, saccharine and pained and absolutely… _revolutionary._ A mental renaissance, drawn from the mouth of a twenty-seven year old boy and his allowance for love….

"The morphine affects everybody differently, Jeeves," he whispers to me delicately, and I come further into his warm, encompassing embrace, my heart filled to an extreme with joy, in revelry of the sweetened words of poetry that fall from my master's lips. He has said that he loves me… we will be together in the idyllic constant, 'forever'….

_Morphine?_ I have only just realized the strange nature of this statement. While, in these moments, I am prepared to take any word spoken with affection from him as some relation to this gloriously newfound spring, there seems to me absolutely nothing of this dark Lapis lazuli, star-decked universe that could make an opiate derived from the over-large _Papaver somniferum_ supply seem as though it fits into some yet unfilled crevice in my near-perfect façade.

"Forgive me, sir… but… what did you say?" My voice sounds peculiarly distant, but his gaze remains as dreamy and love-struck as ever, so, I forge on with a touch more strength. "My love… I do not understand what it is you mean…." He smiles knowingly and touches the side of my face again,

"The morphine, Jeeves. It can have very strange affects on people previously unexposed to the refined product of the active chemicals derived from the common opium poppy bloom…."

"What?" I am sincerely more dumbstruck than I've ever been in the past with him, - even considering the kiss he so recently bestowed upon me, - and realize that his tone is utterly changed… and the words not his own. I am left staring, dismayed, completely bemused. He does not answer me, and tears begin to sting at my eyes while I question him again and again, unable to leave his overly tight, nearly suffocating embrace now that I desire to-

And, then, there is light.

Scathingly bright light drawn before my eyes before I can even figure the end of the beginning of the love I believe myself to have shared with Mister Wooster. Looking around me… he doesn't even seem to be present any longer.

In fact, I am no longer in the flat- instead, I've been deposited on a bed in a starkly clean room decorated in perplexingly friendly colors of deep blue and brown. I desire to stand, but find I cannot- I seem to be strapped down into a nefarious contraption with braces on the sides of my head, disallowing movement of any kind but the smallest twitches of the extremities- nothing to free me from this completely inexplicable prison that has driven me from the arms of my master so very rudely.

A doctor floats into my line of sight, - the same one from the flat, Carlyle, his silver hair combed back and his eyes firmly planted upon my own, with deep brown irises that betray nothing, - and, after some meaningful silence, he speaks,

"The morphine affects everyone differently, Mister Jeeves," he gives me with a voice that attempts to calm earnestly, but one to break my heart, as the words I just recall from my love are echoed nearly exactly… and I am, unfortunately, blessed with enough cognition through the opiate haze I must have been administered to see that my great epiphany was nothing more than a dream. Indeed, I am quickly confirmed, "You have been hallucinating since we brought you from your flat."

I can trace the move in my mind, now, from my memory of my imagined moments with Mister Wooster. The words were all purely conceived through the drug as it took its affects... But the thought that he had pulled me to sit beside him in his bed was a result of being deposited here, on this thin, metal-sprung mattress; what my mind had morphed curiously, - painfully, - into an embrace was of the opposite intent that I pictured my master posing to me, a set of leather straps being drawn taut over my chest and legs; the feel of velveteen hands on my face were really some illusion, the sensation of cold, polished metal against my cheeks morphed into something to be desired from my conscious mind. I suppose that the kiss had really been some brush of the face against the bed's sheets or a careless doctor's sleeve while I was being maneuvered….

One desires to weep in these situations- both in the dream and in reality, for the sudden extremes of massive joy and massive despair- but one cannot, when the mind rebels so much against the physical restraints that have been placed upon its bodily vessel. The doctor has not spoken as I have been thinking everything over; when I come to look at him again, he nearly forces a word out before I cut boldly across him.

"Why have you done this to me, Doctor Carlyle?" My voice has returned to sounding from my throat, but it is yet more somber than I imagined it could be, even at this moment, and begin insistently, unable to control myself after so great a loss. "Why have you taken me away from our flat? Mister Wooster shall be waking soon, Doctor, and I must attend to him… you cannot have me here for so long- he shall need things that he hasn't the faculties to provide for himself..."

"Mister Jeeves... I haven't any way to respond to you on this, if you will not believe me," he gives in a long-suffering tone, rubbing his temples exasperatedly, a sincerely infuriating gesture when I_ know_ what is the truth. "Mister Wooster died approximately one week ago, after a large dose of mercury. Neurological complications- which may not have caused any long-term damage by themselves- followed by a simple swelling and hemorrhaging of the brain after being repeatedly knocked against a solid surface."

"Restore him to me _at once,"_ I begin bawling at him, pulling furiously at my restraints in an attempt to sit up and address the man properly. His stare continues… that clinical, damnably pitying gaze that he meets me with each time I make a motion to speak- it is _maddening._ "He is perfectly safe... I need to take care of him again..."

"Yes, yes... of course, Mister Jeeves." His tone has become a sigh, and, frustratingly, I am left alone in the charming little room again- I can see now that it is an office that I've been taken to, likely for some sort of preliminary examination by a psychiatrist, or other man of the mental sciences. They think there is so much wrong with me… it is the fault of the aberration of man that none can identify _himself_ as the root of the problem, that they would question my knowledge of _my_ master before making far-off diagnoses of their own.

I am reasonably surprised when he is brought into me... my Mister Wooster, dressed in a nondescript brown suit that hardly becomes him, and his pale hair in some disarray over his head... but, at least, it has grown back after the incident of days before, when he was so badly ailing and gone off his food.

"I want to move, Jeeves," he announces to me gladly, in a queer voice, but one that I can call his own in the state that I am in at the moment, in which the opium coerces me into accepting everything that is not a great example of injustice or falsehood. They can see, now, that he is alive, and a smile creeps tiredly over my face to Doctor Carlyle, who is obscured, as he stands directly behind my master,

"You see... you _see_ that he is alive." A small, triumphant note of laughter floats through my chest, and I come back to looking to Mister Wooster in a state of exhaustive elation, "Mister Wooster... sir... I would be happy to follow you to the end of the earth, after this terrible business… people saying that you've died…. They know nothing. I hardly see how it is fit that I should have been brought to this place, knowing how very badly the doctor behind you has spoken, how he and others insisted to me that you were gone, from some… dose of mercury, or some sort of... organic metal such as that..."

"Utter rot, certainly, Jeeves," he agrees with me lightly, tipping his head slightly forward in a gesture I have to guess is out of respect for my opinion, although it is nothing I've seen him do in my presence before. He turns to Doctor Carlyle and speaks to him firmly, "Go on, 'doctor'! You were wrong, I see, as Jeeves was right. It would much oblige us if you would take your leave now." The doctor's reply is so quiet that I cannot hear it, but Mister Wooster has turned back to me once his piece is finished, "He wants to stay with us while we discuss the living arrangements. Is that all right with you, Jeeves?"

I nod anyway, - as much as I can, - thoroughly enamored of the man standing so gloriously living and healthy before me once again, and he begins on his pleasant scheme for us to be free of the bother of his relatives and his friends forever. It is truly a marvel to see… after all, even though I knew the truth so well... for perhaps a moment, I had begun to believe the words of that repugnant, disreputable Doctor Carlyle.

* * *

Our life is fairly solitary in terms of close company, now, but very pleasant, as we share all of the time. I do not cook regularly anymore, as the place Mister Wooster chose provides for us. Only myself, in fact. I wish for him to eat, but he always refuses, and often refuses to speak, much the same as that day when the Doctor and Mister Little came to the London flat demanding to see my master.

He only speaks at certain times, and generally when there is a doctor around- which, frankly, miffs me, as there is so much that I would speak of with him that I would not allow to pass the ears of any of those who are sent around to run the place. But there is a further progression in the field of physicality, at least, as we sleep in the same quarters now. The people who are with us insist that I must sleep restrained, as they believe I have been sleepwalking, but, besides, things are well. Mister Wooster and I are brought often to speak to other people who live in the complex- many of them are laden with difficulty, though. There is a man who can hardly articulate himself, and, when he does, it is certainly not easily comprehended- I believe it is something to do with the speech impediment impacting the confidence of a person, something of which I've read in my many books on psychology. There are others who do not speak at all, merely moan and stare at the ceiling, but they, too, receive all of the kindness of those who are sent around to be sure that everyone is well.

Even though this complex Mister Wooster desired to move to is run by others, I am allowed tasks that I had in the flat, cleaning and helping with meals at times (though the latter is truly difficult, with the strict diet that is enforced, consisting primarily of root vegetables). I speak easily to the staff there, and they appreciate my words, my knowledge of the poets and philosophers and so forth. Although not an intellectual community, I suppose that I can see Mister Wooster's choice, coming here after all of the trouble that we were given those months ago, when he was ailing and unable to move from bed by himself. It is a matter of relaxation after a nearly impassable upheaval. We shall move, certainly, at some point, and again come into communication with Mister Wooster's relatives and friends. At the moment, we simply need to have a rest, and learn better of each other, as we would not have before. He was right to suggest that we come here, and I love the man for it. For everything.

* * *

**A/N:** Reviewers this get (non-insane) Jeeves for a day! 8D I'll even let you decide which one you want. Who could _POSSIBLY_ resist? If not him, then Bertie singing _Forty-Seven Ginger Headed Sailors _to you.

I apologise for my awfully long sentence structure and confusing way, sometimes, but I have a bit of an obsessive need to sound unconventional in my work, except when making use of clichés. As I've stressed already- PLEASE read and review!


	2. The Diagnosis

**Disclaimer:** I hope that you already know that I am not the master craftsman Mister Wodehouse. If I were, I would likely have been so mobbed that I would be dead again before I could publish anything more.

Part Deux! Very short. Doctor Carlyle's take on all of this mental illness stuff. No real warnings to give for this bit.

* * *

My greatest failure, - although my most fascinating case, - was that of a fellow Englishman, surprising as that is to me, a Mister Reginald Jeeves. One-hundred and ninety-five point six centimeters tall, thirty-two years of age, with black hair and blue eyes, of middle-class Hebrew and English descent; raised as a Protestant Christian in Norfolk. He sounds one of the most normal Englishman one can imagine, when one comes to describing him like this, but, then, as I've maintained, almost all cases start out in this way, when you begin to talk about the patient's physical characteristics, their schooling, and their family. It is what happened when you were with them that is important, that makes each case stand out in his own right- it would not have mattered if the fellow were the most strange-looking Englishman on the face of the earth, so long as it did not alter the psychology that made him into the case that I know. After all, when Treves' Elephant Man was found to be as genial and possessive of intelligence as the surgeon said, no-one was about to doubt his psychological condition due to his grotesque deformities.

I was incited when I first was called by a frantic young man to come to an apartment building, as he worried that his friend had been poisoned. It took actually coming to speak to young Mister Little to find out that the poisoning was most certainly confirmed, and the friend dead. He told me that, immediately after this Wooster fellow was found dead, something changed in the gentleman's valet. That he suddenly ushered Mister Little away and wouldn't let him back inside. The boy told me that he thought the man just wanted to call the morgue himself, to have some sort of control over the lamentable situation, but, when he heard nothing in the paper, he began to worry. Indeed, on an attempt to visit, he even caught sight of the body, dressed in new clothes, sitting on the sofa in the flat's sitting room.

As one can expect, after being told such a chilling thing as that, I was shaking when I approached the door to the specified apartment, and had a nearly frighteningly tall (in the present situation, anyway), youngish gentleman greeting me in the doorway. Surely his ability to sense my worry about him quickly allowed the man to "take the upper hand", as it were, as I was soon overcome by my errant inability to produce a string of assuring words that would convince him of my utmost sincerity and care for the man in question. So, I allowed his tall, broad presence and weirdly frigid gaze have its monstrous way with me, and, before I could have said that I was entirely "recovered" from my experience of this ponderous fellow, I found the door closed with a _"snap"_ and the click of a lock near to my face. Much as in any situation of great disapprobation, coming as the stimulus that had me so worried was removed, I very suddenly found myself imbued with a strong, angry passion, yelling at the door to the man, telling him over many times that the young one inside was in need of help.

This, as you've surely gleaned already, was of no help to my cause. I was met with nothing but the gentle rumbling of a resonant, professional voice speaking behind the door about the day, as if to its owner. On finding Mister Little once more, we were both in agreement that further action needed to be carried out. Our decision seemed to be upsetting to the young man- I realized why this was later, when I was required to evaluate Mister Little psychologically, and I was made aware of the bafflingly convoluted marital exploits of Mister Jeeves, himself, and the empty body then cooling in the morgue some rooms away.

So, we found the nearest policeman in the street, an older gentleman of slightly below-average height and definitely above-average corpulence. His exterior betrayed nothing of his confidence and bravery, I was glad to note as Mister Little and I brought him up to the flat, after having hastily spilled out the story all the way up the stairs to the third floor of the Berkley Mansions building. We were inside with the much calmer approach that the officer took, - he being more physically able to cope, if he needed to, behind his loaded weapon.

I could see from the start that this Mister Jeeves was in a state of ardent denial of experience, to be expected from a traumatic encounter, particularly with a person one is close to- and one can hardly imagine anyone physically closer than a valet to his master, though, Mister Jeeves' manner seemed to me to imply far beyond the stony assurances and declines that one generally only hears from the mouths of one's traditional butler or gentleman's valet. But, then, this may simply be my idea come up recently, since I have seen his behavior with the substitute for real company we gave to him.

After some explanation that brought us no ground in the way of convincing him, we were able to sedate Mister Jeeves and bring him to the psychiatric ward in the London Hospital- as the Isolation Ward was unavailable for the moment, he had to be placed onto a lightweight cot, restrained, and taken into my office for our last effort- this, as I expected, gave nothing, and we followed through with the plan that I suggested.

This involved an easy scheme that I was quite assured would work, as the man had already fixated with apparent ease onto a visibly decaying corpse. The plan was to dress a life-sized dummy in a suit and to hastily sew a blonde wig into its head. Speaking behind the thing worked like a charm- he was as fooled, as I expected.

You might think this sounds a psychological success to me, owing to the fact that a reasonable solution to keep the man alive and away from society was found, but, as I've stated at the beginning of this address, it is definitely the opposite. You see, Mister Jeeves is _still_ confined in the mental hospital with that dummy that he brings everywhere when he is allowed out of his room, treating it with all the care that he must have his old master, dressing it and speaking to it with all the jocundity of familiar friends, when there is someone there to provide the voice. It is terribly unfortunate to me that he will never realize what happened, - and can never continue a normal life. It is this that makes it the only case that has made me truly emotional. I and the rest of the staff have since found him to be remarkably intelligent, able to quote any named poet with the first syllable of a name, any philosopher with a theory posed; any scientific exploit with a remark on the interest in how something occurs. How someone such as himself could fall into such a state for the sake of his three-year employer, I shall never know.

Perhaps it shall be known in the future of medicine. But, for now… it is my personal mystery and tragedy.

* * *

**A/N:** I'm bad at endings, as you see. XP

_PLEASE_ R&R! That's really the most I can say, at this point...


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